nk of what may be its contents."

"And--this--from--you! Oh,--Democrates,--"

The accused man's hands snatched at the air. He sank upon a chest.

"He does not deny it," threw out the orator, but Glaucon's voice rang
shrilly:--

"Ever! Ever will I deny! Though the Twelve Gods all cried out 'guilty!'
The charge is monstrous."

"It is time, Democrates," said Themistocles, who had preserved a grim
silence, "that you showed us clearly whither your path is leading. This is
a fearful accusation you launch against your best-loved friend."

"Themistocles is right," assented the orator, moving away from the
luckless Seuthes as from a pawn no longer important in the game of life
and death. "The whole of the wretched story I fear I must tell on the Bema
to all Athens. I must be brief, but believe me, I can make good all I say.
Since my return from the Isthmia, I have been observed to be sad.
Rightly--for knowing Glaucon as I did, I grew suspicious, and I loved him.
You have thought me not diligent in hunting down the Persian spy. You were
wrong. But how could I ruin my friend without full proof? I made use of
Agis,--no genteel confederate, to be sure, but honest, patriotic,
indefatigable. I soon had my eyes on the suspected Babylonish
carpet-seller. I observed Glaucon's movements closely, they gave just
ground for suspicion. The Babylonian, I came to feel, was none other than
an agent of Xerxes himself. I discovered that Glaucon had been making this
emissary nocturnal visits."

"A lie!" groaned the accused, in agony.

"I would to Athena I believed you," was the unflinching answer; "I have
direct evidence from eye-witnesses that you went to him. In a moment I can
produce it. Yet still I hesitated. Who would blast a friend without
damning proof? Then yesterday with your own lips you told me you sent a
messenger to disloyal Argos. I suspected two messages, not one, were
entrusted to Seuthes, and that you proclaimed the more innocent matter
thus boldly simply to blind my eyes. Before Seuthes started forth this
morning Agis informed me he had met him in a wine-shop--"

"True," whimpered the unhappy prisoner.

"And this fellow as much as admitted he carried a second and secret
message--"

"Liar!" roared Seuthes.

"Men hint strange things in wine-shops," observed Democrates,
sarcastically. "Enough that a second papyrus with Glaucon's seal has been
found hidden upon you."

"Open it then, and know the worst," interjected The